British School at Rome
For one hundred years, world-class researchers and contemporary artists have been nurtured at the British School at Rome (BSR), bridging the intellectual and cultural heart of Rome and Italy with creative and academic researchers from Britain and the Commonwealth.
Each year the BSR offers outstanding researchers and artists the opportunity to join the community living and working in Rome. Award-holders in the BSR have included some of the most successful and critically esteemed artists of the last century and since 2000, from Thomas Monnington, Winifred Knights and John Skeaping to Eddie Peake, Cornelia Parker and Mark Wallinger.
The BSR hosts around thirty individuals at any one time including those studying or practising visual arts, architecture, archaeology, art history, history and all periods of Italian studies. The dynamic and inspiring community in Rome is a cohesive one, including communal dining, day trips, workshops, lectures and events on site and further afield in Rome and Italy.
The BSR is also home to rich research collections composed of a specialist library, archives and graphic collections. The most significant include:
The Photographic Collection
Made up of nearly a hundred thousand items (including calotypes, glass negatives, lantern slides, 35 mm film and postcards) the Photographic Collection preserves material ranging from the 1850s to the end of the twentieth century, on subjects covering Greek, Roman as well as medieval and Renaissance Italian and European art and architecture from the collections of Robert Macpherson, John Henry Parker, Peter Paul Mackey, Thomas Ashby, John Bryan Ward-Perkins and others.
British School at Rome, Archive and Library
The Archive
The administrative archive consists of records documenting the BSR’s own activities since 1901 including material relating to awardees, organisational charters, papers of council, directors’ correspondence as well as material relating to the history of the fine arts programmes, exhibition records and lectures. Private archives and papers donated to the BSR are also stored here.
Rare Book and Special Collections
At the heart of the BSR’s vast Rare Book Collection are over a thousand volumes acquired by Thomas Ashby, which reflect his research interests and focus on early guidebooks to Rome, bound editions of early engravings (with an ample collection of Piranesi prints), Italian topography, history and archaeology. This collection has since been enhanced by donations including an important group of early guidebooks to Rome.
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